


What Would A Mother Not Do For Her Child

by sinnermon



Series: A Study in Grief [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Mother-Daughter Relationship, idk this was a messy lil fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnermon/pseuds/sinnermon
Summary: After the death of her only child, Ana is faced with more questions than she's ever had. She seeks out answers in every place, while navigating the complicated ocean of grief.





	What Would A Mother Not Do For Her Child

**Author's Note:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS 100%!!! I LOVE TO READ YOUR OPINIONS IT FUELS ME!!!
> 
> \---
> 
> hi i have no inspo for the top 16, but im going to be gone on a roadtrip and will hopefully be working out some ideas for that! anyways this was written out of fear of losing my siblings and my mom, so hahahah. its really messy and i wish id polished it a bit more but w/e
> 
> send hate mail send happy mail w/e
> 
> i want to kind of try to continue this with different ovw characters and their reactions to grief

The coffeemaker is only cleaned when Fareeha leaves for a mission. It gives Ana something to do, something to take care of. Even when the thing is spotless and shiny from a week of conflict in some foreign nation, Ana goes to it with the rag the moment her daughter is out the hangar door. She wrings her hands together once it’s thoroughly done, and tries to find something else to keep her mind at ease.

Climbing halfway into the refrigerator, she pulls stale produce and flat sodas from the depths. Ana checks each expiration date, shaking the awful thoughts from her head as she does. It had been promised to her, by Jack, that Fareeha would come back in one piece. His promises are worth as much as fool's gold these days, but Ana can be assured that his protective instinct still flares up for Fareeha. It doesn't matter, Ana knows how promises work in the field. She hates herself for thinking so cynically.

Ana looks up at the clock, and realizes it's ten minutes to the ship's return. She wonders if she should go meet Fareeha at the hangar, but knows how things will unfold if she does. It's unlikely to go how she envisions it, in the dream she has where Fareeha will finally speak to her.

It's her own fault, Ana knows, but she can't help but dream.

A moldy loaf of bread is thrown straight into the bin, the yogurt is sorted, and Ana carefully arranges the sauces by their color. She's halfway through checking each egg for cracks when heavy footsteps come slowly up towards the doorway. A chill seeps up her spine, but Ana shakes the thought from her head. Jack had promised.

While she digs for whatever smells in the back of the fridge, the footsteps stop. Ana continues her pursuit, neglecting the presence of the other person. Should they speak first, she’ll dignify them, but until then, Ana must treat each intruder to her routine as nothing more than a fly in her ear. Peace comes from within, as she’s heard. Nobody getting their tea can seek it out for her. Within the midst of displeasure and anxiety, she’s found it, on her own. This peace has been hunted, and she will hold her prize.

“Ana.”

It’s Jack. He’s behind her, she can feel his presence, pushed up against the counter trying to consume as little space as possible. But his voice fills the room, compresses her into the fridge and pushes the air from her lungs. Ana feels smashed, with her hand fondling an old container of leftovers, crushed by the weight of just her name on Jack’s tongue.

There’s a moment of silence. The word weighs on the back of her neck, the crushing feeling back in her lungs, and her hand clinging to the lid of the container.

“I’m so sorry.”

He uses the pitying tone that Ana has used herself many times over the years. That one that’s intended to speak so much more than just what is said, but now she realizes the hollow feeling it leaves behind. The silence returns, all too deafening in her ears. Ana breathes too deeply, trying to center herself as she rips the container from the fridge. It stings against the angry tears burning their way up the back of her throat. The stench of the rotted leftovers hits Ana, and it forces her to speak.

All the questions swirling in her mind feel so trivial, and they’re answered with Jack’s simple taking of her arm. He hoists her from the floor, the leftovers hitting the floor with a definitive clatter. It’s surprising to Ana that she manages to remain upright, although she leans on Jack more than seems appropriate. Using his spare arm, he hooks it around her waist and leads her out of the kitchen.

“Where is she?” Ana whispers. She had opened it might come out as more of a demand, but instead, the words die in her throat and she whimpers out the question.

“Ana,” He begins, and his words are killed too, right where the tears begin.

“Tell me.” This comes out stronger, but still too weak to stand independent of Jack, Ana’s demand remains soft, “Tell me, where is Fareeha?”

“You shouldn’t see her.”

“I need to identify the body.”

Jack chuckles shortly, but Ana pretends not to find humor in what she’s said. It has to be done, and Ana will know if they’ve brought home the remains of some random soldier, or her daughter, who died amongst the sands she was born in. She will know if her pain is real.

“You’ll need to walk on your own,” Jack tells her.

Ana doesn’t doubt her strength, not for one moment. She knows that even with her only child lost, she can still carry herself like the soldier she is. When Jack releases her, the pain breaks free of the invisible barrier his arm had made, and Ana must lean too heavily on the doorway to the rest of the commons. They stand in the little hallway, the one that connects kitchen to commons, that puts her on display to everyone as a grieving former mother.

“I can take you to your quarters instead.” He says, so patronizingly.

“Her body must be identified.” Ana repeats, pushing past Jack into the commons. She stares around the room, pleased to find that everybody has cleared themselves out.

Baby steps lead her to the medical wing, Jack’s shoulder coming on occasion to guide her. Ana feels the heaviness growing greater in her limbs, and she’s weighed down so strongly by the thought of her daughter behind the door. She’s attended to many body identifications, has played Jack’s role as she has walked behind bereaved mothers, and has watched them stare at their children, covered from the neck down. It’s a sight she’s so familiar with that Ana assumes she must be desensitized to it.

The feeling in her chest grows lighter as they near the infirmary door. Ana pictures herself much younger, much less weary, being aided by Jack after a rough training. It eases her mind to imagine this as routine, as a mere formality. She wants to live in this moment, but is stolen from it when she turns to a white-haired Jack, face obscured by his visor.

He doesn’t move to hold her like he used to, they just stand there awkwardly at each other’s sides. Ana can tell how deep he’s burying the hurt, but not for her sake. Whatever Jack does these days is all for himself, turned cold and selfish by the years after Overwatch’s fall. Even in these tense and painful minutes, he doesn’t reach for her hand or provide one of his calming smiles like he used to. Instead, he stares at the floor and leaves Ana to shoulder open the door on her own.

The white walls and tiles are all too bright to take in at once, and Ana must bow her head to avoid being blinded. Jack’s steps do not follow her into the room. When she raises her head, it’s only Angela and the new apprentice, standing before a white curtain. The sight hitches Ana’s breath in her throat, and she stops when Angela grips the edge of the curtain.

“All you’ll be asked to do is confirm Fareeha’s identity,” Angela warns her, as though they’ve never done this before. She breathes deeply, then speaks again, as though to provide more padding before what’s to come, “I’ll leave her covered, all you need to see is her face. The autopsy will be completed by tonight, tomorrow at the very latest. Results will reach you before they’re made public, though Helix will receive their copy at the same time.”

Ana nods, out of obligation, and Angela turns to face the curtain. She steps away, nods to her apprentice, who takes her place and slowly pulls it back.

Fareeha’s skin is marred, blackened by gun powder and shredded likely by shrapnel. The blanket dips where her chest ought to be, and Ana finds herself moving forward out of a morbid curiosity. Her hair was been signed off, and what remains is mattered and dirty. Pieces of armor are lodged in her neck. They punctuate the bruises left behind by whatever has killed her.

Placing a hand on the side of Fareeha's face, Ana can feel the torn muscles in her face. She traces fingertips down, smearing away a layer of filth as she does. As she goes further, the muscles feel even worse, feel severed, snapped, and shredded. There's something wrong about everything, all of the skin feels tattered and broken, and what lies beneath is no better.

With her fists balling up the blanket, Ana looks to Angela, who averts her eyes. It sparks something painful in Ana, demands that she go beyond merely identifying her daughter’s body, and she pulls.

There’s a crater in Fareeha’s chest. Viscera and organs have been pushed aside to make room for a deep nothingness. Her abdominal cavity is blackened and charred, gunpowder forever staining the remnants of her armor. The metal is twisted, peeling away from the impact, and what clings on is as broken as her body.

Ana allows the blanket to fall again. She stares simply at the hole, and is tempted to plunge her hands into the dark depths, try to salvage some of her baby’s heart and soul. Instead, she runs her fingertips over the top of her armor, feeling the crushed metal beneath her hand. It creaks, threatening to break down even further, and Ana withdraws instantly.

She wants to crawl into the hole. She wants to live in what little is left of her daughter, survive for her, inside of her. She wants their souls to merge in that hole, for them to become one, for their lungs to inflate together. She wants for Fareeha’s lungs to inflate just one last time, with her’s.

 

For the sake of professionalism, Jack is the one to alert Sam. Despite Ana’s insistence that she must make her own call to him, Angela promises she’ll get the chance later, leading her off into the barracks. They walk arm-in-arm, and Ana finds herself leaning too far into the touch. It feels so cruel to be with Angela in these moments, the surrogate daughter she’d found in the early days of Fareeha’s estrangement. It feels like cheating, to relish Angela’s care and caution.

They approach Fareeha’s room in relative silence, and Ana withdraws her arm from the crook of Angela’s. Silently, she stops in front of be door, nameplate already dutifully removed. It’s muscle memory, knowing exactly where to pause to find her child. She’s trained to stand in this very spot, consider knocking, then hurry away without anything gained.

“I have the key,” Angela whispers. She pulls the little card from her pocket, and passes it over to Ana, saying, “It’s a master. Let’s me into every room in the building- for emergencies.”

Ana turns the key over in her palm, then steps up to the door and presses it gently against the reader. It takes the scan instantly, humming kindly to indicate allowed entrance. She puts her shoulder up against the door, palm right against the wood, but fails to move. Angela stands patiently behind her, waiting for the door to be opened.

The reader angrily beeps, warning Ana she’s got precious few seconds left to open the door, and she fails to meet the deadline. A click sounds in the wall, and the reader hums a flat note. Ana stays pressed up against the door, trying to hear something beyond it. There’s nothing more than the gears of the lock churning and whirring, and once it silences, Ana is left in brutal quiet.

She runs the key over the reader one more time, allowing her dead weight to shove the door open.

It looks nothing like Fareeha’s room in their old Cairo home. There had been home exercise equipment strewn about the tiny room, hardly bigger than a walk-in closet. Clothing would be draped over every surface, shoes cluttered up into tiny mountains. Here, it’s a picture of serenity. The closet is open slightly, giving Ana a view of neatly hung up formal clothing, and when she looks to the dresser, she can only imagine tedious, militaristic folding.

Fareeha’s shoes are lined up in a row beside the doorframe, the pair she had left in absent from the phalanx. The bed is made tidily and crisp, sheets folding angularly over the sharp edges of the mattress. It seems unlived in, a snapshot of an empty bedroom.

Ana steps to the dresser. She takes the knobs in her hands, then yanks the drawers open sharply. There’s an array of sweatshirts, all neatly folded up. Each bears the name of a different Overwatch base, embroidered in the notorious orange Ana has come to hate. She doesn’t know why she bought them for Fareeha, throwing more of her money back to the higher ups. She’d loved them, though.

Gingerly, Ana takes up one with the name of a tiny city in California. She presses her face into it, and inhales the scent of Fareeha- coffee and jet fuel, mingling with linen and lavender lotion. It’s so familiar, like a warm hug from beyond the grave.

The grave.

“Fareeha must be buried in Cairo,” Ana announces as she lifts her head from the sweatshirt. Behind her, Angela sighs, and Ana turns to face her. “Sam will want her buried in Canada. She wouldn’t like that.”

Angela doesn’t honor Ana’s babbling with any response, just let’s the grief come out however it can. But Ana continues to remove sweatshirts and shirts from the drawer, cradling them in her arms as the scent of sweat filters up into her nose. It’s soft and fleece-lined, and Ana can understand exactly why Fareeha had cherished them so.

She sighs deeply, holds them as though they’re a baby to replace her own. Carefully, Ana turns and begins to step over to the closet. As she moves, articles of clothing dripping from her arms, leaving a straight trail.

The door is hardly open, giving her just a tiny glimpse of the nicely pressed dress uniforms hung up in equally neat rows. A few suit jackets hang in the back of the closet, along with pants and an odd dress left in the back. In the very back of it, the darkness obscures the rest of the contents. Ana finds herself sticking a sole finger though the crack, tracing the seams of the closest jacket, a few stray crumbs falling off into the grooves of her fingerprint.

Ana retracts her hand to closely examine the specks, but hits the door on the way out. The crumbs fall to the wooden floor, and the feeling of need to seek them out fills her. Instead, her shoe glides over the pile, and Ana thrusts open the doors.

In the back, she finds a set of parkas, all branded with Overwatch’s logo. There’s a black poncho shoved in the back, as well as other outfits atypical of Fareeha’s style. Ana feels the threads, continues to push them aside so she can reach to the back. She finds an old leather jacket of Sam’s from before Fareeha’s birth, it smells musty, and Ana feels satisfied on first inhale. She continues to sift through the clothing, and finds a gift from herself. It’s a sweater, found in one Gibraltar’s many shops, gifted to Fareeha prior to her first deployment to London in winter.

The price tags are still on it.

Ana feels something pooling in her gut, and holds tightly to the sweater as her knees buckle. It slips off the hangar, falling to the floor with Ana. She buries her face against the hardwood and pushes all the air from her lungs in a long, grief-filled howl.

It’s a sort of confirmation, an answer to the question she’s had hanging in her mind for years, though more pop up in their place. Who had Fareeha thought of in her final moments? Did she feel free now? Did she miss Ana? Or Sam?

Questions swirl in her brain, and Ana can feel a hand on her shoulder. It’s so clearly Angela’s, but she pictures an angelic-looking Fareeha clinging onto her in an eternal portrait of serenity.

 

There’s a manila file folder separating Ana and Winston. It’s stamped “CONFIDENTIAL”, though the details barely warrant the warning. He’s reluctant to hand it over, so it lingers between them, Ana’s eyes locked on the thing like a vulture targeting a carcass.

“Let me see it.” Ana insists. She extends a hand, but Winston isn’t so easy to give it up.

She knows what’s in there, the same as any dossier compiled after an agent’s death. There’s an official autopsy, prepared by Angela, as well as witness statements gathered and a timeline that has been suggested. As Winston thumbs over the edges of the folder, Ana grows steadily more impatient, desperate to access the truth. Each agent has given their own version of the incident, with details spared here and there as they see fit.

Ana has to know what happened, truly. None of them would lie to Winston on an official report. That manila folder holds the answers. It fills the gaps that create her brutal nightmares. It promises more than it has to offer. Ana knows this.

Yet, when Winston finally relinquishes the packet, she accepts it graciously.

 

McCree had witnessed the bullet go through the air, hitting Fareeha’s left jet. The failsafe had activated almost immediately after. He attested to a second bullet being fired at the failsafe, though Angela reported that it had hit the left jet once more. Jack watched Fareeha fire two rockets at her assailants, then receive a bullet to her side. Athena’s records showed a transmission, calling out for help. Lena had been the one to promise it.

Two more bullets were lodged in her leg, according to Athena. Hana saw another two pierce Fareeha’s armor, and another transmission came through: “I’m injured, severely. My armor is damaged and I have only one functional jet. Tracer, where are you?”

Lena failed to answer, caught up in a fight with some Talon agents. McCree reported a bullet hitting Fareeha’s failsafe jet, and another burst eliminating the right jet. Not even the failsafe was enough to keep her airborne, and it was Jack who witnessed Fareeha careen towards Earth. 

As fate placed Fareeha right between a missile and it’s target, Athena had captured her final transmission: “I need immediate aid.”

 

“It says,” Ana’s voice quivers. She swallows deeply, holding out the file to Jack, “It says you were with her.”

“She died on impact, the autopsy will tell you as much.” Jack spits, and grips the door to his room so tightly that his knuckles go white. Even with that damned visor obscuring those lying baby blues of his, he looks off into the distance, refusing to even glance at her. “There’s nothing to say about it. Fareeha hit the ground, and there were no signs of life.”

Taking a deep breath, Ana stares back down at the stamp on the folder. She closes her eyes, and swallows down the vitriol rising up inside of her. In the old days of Overwatch, they had each been trained to handle bereaved loved ones. Ana remembers playing a grieving mother in one of their practice sessions.

Back then, Jack had so much grace. He took her hand lightly, told her that her son had been killed in combat. He spun a tale of heroism and bravery, promised full payment for a military funeral, and allowed the mother to sob on his shoulder. Both of them had received high praise for their performance, putting it to the test less than three days later when a junior cadet was taken hostage and assassinated on a mission. Even under stress, Jack had been a real leading man. The woman was bawling from the moment they appeared at the door, and he had just taken her in his arms and promised her that her son was a hero.

“What do you want me to tell you, Ana?” He demands, and Ana can picture him looming over her. Jack had always done that when they fought, got a height advantage on her so Ana would have to use twice as much bark to make up for her acute lack of bite.

Back then, she had always won the fights. Even when Jack had won the promotions, praise, and people- Ana won the fights. He would always come stalking down the hall with his hips jutted, arms swinging powerfully by his side. All six feet of him would be standing up straight like a rod had been stuck up his ass, and he’d come towering over her. It only took a couple of minutes for Ana to knock him down to her level, and they’d stare eye to eye at five foot two, before she could take off in her own confident jaunt down the hall.

Ana has no spark inside of her this time. She brings the folder to her chest, heaves a heavy sigh, and faces all five feet nine inches of him, down from five feet off the ground. She nods simply, and retreats down the hall with her tail tucked between her legs.

 

Fareeha’s body is quietly cremated in a small town in Spain. The ashes are split between two containers, one sent back to Gibraltar in Ana’s arms, and the other taken with Sam on his flight back to Canada.

Jack’s hands grip the steering wheel tightly, but his concentration doesn’t waver as he drives himself and Ana back to Gibraltar. She sits in the back seat, making herself as tiny as possible while she feels the edges of the container. Ana wonders what pieces of Fareeha she may be clutching to- her arms, her legs, her sense of humor, her radiant smile. A more bitter side of her wonders what Sam has.

Carefully, Ana lifts the lid of the little box. She stares at the grey beads of what was once her child. What once lived in her womb, what once clung to her hand in crowded shopping malls, what once begged for band-aids, what once yelled at her and made her cry- is now nothing more than blackened ashes that can fit in a box barely too big to be held in one hand. It’s only half of her child, the other sent across the world. Ana inhales deeply, but all she can smell is petrol and cows from the field.

 

“Did she suffer?”

The question lingers in the air, and Angela, despite her social ineptitude, knows she’s waited too long to give her reply. Ana watches her expectantly, still clutching onto the box of ashes. It’s nauseating to see it in her arms, but Angela bites back the feeling and forces herself to look Ana right in the eyes. It’s even worse.

“I just want to know.” Ana whispers, her grip on the box faltering only slightly.

Angela nods curtly, and looks to her computer. She sits in the cushy office chair, then begins to drag and drop windows on the screen. Working diligently, she barely notices Ana slowly encroaching behind her. Finally, after enough digging to have brought up half the team’s records, Angela finds Fareeha’s autopsy, buried despite it’s recency.

By now, she knows the entirety of the report by heart. If asked, Angela could likely recite it two times over and in reverse. But Ana isn’t asking for the report.

“From my assessment, Fareeha suffered, yes,” Angela doesn’t dare look behind her, but can hear the tiny gasp that escapes Ana. “However, I believe it to be divine euthanasia.”

Another, more painful, howl comes from behind Angela. She turns this time, to see Ana covering her mouth, clutching the box of ashes to her chest in a futile gesture of comfort. It’s the most vulnerable she’s ever seen her former commander, looking like a child carrying a teddy bear for solace. Nonetheless, Angela sets her jaw as she would in speaking to any grieving mother, and continues.

“The bullets in Fareeha’s leg had caused severe damage. It was likely she would need amputation, but I doubt she would’ve made it that far. No medic on that squad was experienced in amputation,” Angela sighs, making a mental note to hold more educational sessions. “Her other injuries would’ve contributed to her pain, as well. The damage jets caused severe burns to her back, and she had injuries to her kidney and stomach. Ana, if she hadn’t been hit by the missile, she would’ve either died the moment she hit the ground, or suffered long enough to die on my table.”

The room grows unbearably silent, and Angela understands exactly what she’s said and done. Ana sighs deeply, staring down at the white container.

“At least she died doing what she loved.” Angela whispers, turning back to her computer.

 

Ana is the one to clean out Fareeha’s room. It’s been too long to justify keeping it ready for Fareeha’s return, and as a new recruit is on their way to Gibraltar, Jack offers Ana the task of preparing the space She takes several moving boxes with her, carefully packing away the items of clothing that have lost their scent. Instead, when Ana buries her face in the fabric, she’s assaulted by the smell of must and mildew.

They go into the boxes one by one, and the few personal items Fareeha keeps about are wrapped carefully and placed into a laundry hamper to be returned to Ana’s room in. She places jewelry into special cases, and even dumps the stray hair ties into a container. Ana stacks them all in the hamper, and finds herself spending too long staring at the bed.

If it weren’t for the stray strands of hair, lying willy nilly across the pillowcase, it would look as though nobody had ever been here. With only the closet and bed left to be taken care of, the entire room is almost entirely cleared out. Ana is careful in her movements, gathering up as many strands as she can into her palm.

Her fingers close over the bundle, and she sighs deeply as she stares at the light reflecting off of jet black strands. It makes her heart heavy with tears, but she refuses to cry. There’s a job that must be done, and she places each hair carefully into an earring box to be saved later.

Ana continues to the closet, thrusting open the doors and examining the neatly organized clothing. She takes each dress uniform, folds it carefully, and places it in a box. The same goes for every other article left behind, until she gets to the sweater.

The price tags haunt her.

It’s tossed to the floor, to be dealt with later. Ana sinks to her knees, searching the bottom of the closet to ensure that nothing is left to be taken. The darkness extends to the end of the closet, and she’s forced to thrust out a hand, banging it hard against something that feels unlike the wall.

She slaps it a few times, to get a feel for the object’s shape, then finally manages to grab hold of it and pull it into the light. It’s a shoebox, intended for a pair of women’s heels. Ana’s hands slide over the top of the box, feeling as though it might contain what she’s been desperate for this entire time- some sort of signal that Fareeha had secretly loved her. Their relationship had been deeper than a constant nagging and arguing. They had a _relationship._

Closing her eyes, Ana lifts the top from the box. She breathes deeply, imaging photos of the pair together. She pictures letters and pacts, words unsaid, and dreams of familial peace relayed in a beautiful prose. She imagines her daughter smiling on her from Paradise, witnessing her finding that missing link. She thinks of the phrases that died on tongues. She asks for nothing more than a promise that Fareeha had last words for her, and had been denied the privilege of saying them.

There’s a pair of black heels, a folded receipt over top of them. Under the left shoe, there’s a small scrap of paper poking out. Ana rips it from it’s position, and reads the most painful message of all:

_“Too small. Remember to return.”_


End file.
